Cal State chooses Angel and Moodlerooms ... for now

For those who think that accessibility is not important, here is a cautionary note from California. Last week, the California State University [CSU] system announced its intent to award master enabling agreements with learning management system providers Angel Learning, Inc., and Moodlerooms.

One of the reasons why Blackboard/WebCT, the largest educational learning management system provider in the world and the system used by 18 of CSU's 23 campuses, was not chosen was that BeachBoard failed to meet the CSU's minimum accessibility requirements. Blackboard's barriers to accessibility were found to be both serious and densely distributed across the application.

Desire2Learn was not chosen both because of concerns about its possible patent infringement and because it too has accessibility gaps, although those gaps are few and may be repairable.

The California State University system recently established the goal that all instructional materials and instructional websites [including learning management systems] for all course offerings at all 23 campuses will be accessible by the start of the Fall 2012 semester.

Blackboard and Desire2Learn will be given a chance to fix their accessibility gaps and resubmit a proposal for reconsideration at a later date.

<opinion>Considering the fact that it usually takes campuses up two two years to migrate from one learning management system to another, and considering that the CSU's 100% accessibility deadline is only four years away, time is rapidly running out for BlackBoard and Desire2Learn to 'cure their ills.' One thing is for certain: The higher education academic technology community is in for some interesting times.</opinion>